Businessman Willie Wilson gave a speech Monday that was heavy on race and bravado, delivering a message to fellow African-American candidates vying to become Chicago’s next mayor: Drop out.

Wilson’s address came before a packed room at a downtown City Club of Chicago luncheon, where he told the predominantly black audience that it was time for the crowded field of 16 candidates to be winnowed down.

“Now you got about eight, 12, 15 black politicians jumping in the race now. They ain’t got no money,” Wilson said to a loud round of laughs. “They ain’t got no money, all right? They need to get out of the way. If I ain’t have no money, I’d be at home taking care of my family.”

Wilson, a self-made millionaire owner of a medical supply company, has largely self-funded his campaign — a move that eliminated state contribution limits in the race and has given all candidates clearance to raise unlimited amounts of cash. So far, Wilson has given his campaign $465,000. The only black candidates who have raised more: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and former Police Board President Lori Lightfoot.

All told, there are nine candidates in the field of 16 with African-American roots, including Wilson, Preckwinkle, Lightfoot, Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown, activist Ja’Mal Green, Austin Chamber of Commerce director Amara Enyia, state Rep. LaShawn Ford, Chicago principals association President Troy LaRaviere and tech entrepreneur Neal Sales-Griffin, who is of African-American, Honduran, Mexican and Filipino descent.

After his speech, Wilson was asked by an audience member whether he thought the field would narrow before the Feb. 26 election.

“Well, if it doesn’t narrow, I’m going to narrow it for them,” Wilson said to cheers. “They’re all going to fall out like flies.”

During his speech, Wilson mentioned only one opponent by name: Preckwinkle. He named the Cook County Democratic Party chair as he discussed how many of the city’s black politicians had sold out fellow African-Americans. He attacked Preckwinkle’s support of a tax on sugary beverages that was passed and later repealed under political pressure from the beverage industry and disgruntled taxpayers.

“They’ve got people lying to the people. Preckwinkle is talking about not raising taxes, when she tried to raise the sugar tax on everybody,” Wilson said to applause. “You tell me how much sugar I have to eat!”

Preckwinkle’s campaign declined to comment.

Wilson’s campaign marks his second run for mayor. In 2015, he finished a distant third, collecting 10 percent of the vote. This time, Wilson vowed the result would be different, as he tries to build a coalition of African-Americans and Latinos to back his campaign.

In a news release, Wilson’s campaign said there was a group of 250 black and Latino pastors on hand for his speech. Wilson asked a “Latino coalition” of about 30 to stand at the lunch. He then asked the African-American pastors in the room to stand, and about 40 rose.

Wilson’s campaign did not respond to a request for the list of 250 pastors backing his candidacy. His staffers were, however, passing out envelopes to pastors after the speech that contained ballot petitions for Elizabeth “Betty” Arias-Ibarra, a Hispanic candidate who is running to unseat current City Clerk Anna Valencia. State Board of Elections records show no formal campaign committee created for Arias-Ibarra.

As for his speech, Wilson returned to many of his familiar themes. He vowed to eliminate the city’s red light cameras while backing a Chicago casino, the legalization and taxation of marijuana, and the re-construction of Meigs Field, a downtown airfield on Lake Michigan that former Mayor Richard M. Daley closed and turned into parkland.

Wilson said he would take new revenue from those initiatives and spend it on city pensions and to create jobs in economically depressed neighborhoods. Wilson, however, did not specifically address any of the city’s fiscal challenges, including the need for the next mayor to come up with nearly $1 billion per year in additional money for the city’s public employee retirement funds.

Wilson drew plenty of attention over the summer, when he handed out more than $200,000 in cash and checks at a South Side church and more than $100,000 to help Cook County residents pay their property taxes. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner was at the church event and later criticized the giveaway, but the state’s election board said Wilson’s charitable acts didn’t violate any election laws.

“My calling in life is helping those who I don’t want to pay me back,” Wilson said Monday. “My calling in life is change and integrate Chicago citizens, and unite as one. I don’t care whether you’re white, black, Latino, Asian-American.”

Wilson’s talk touched heavily on race, remembering his days of growing up in the Jim Crow South, the son of a Louisiana sharecropper who made 20 cents an hour. He recalled being taught to look down at the ground when walking by white women and children, and said he ran away from home at the age of 13 without ever returning to school.

“I didn’t get any B.A.s. The only B.A. I got is born again,” Wilson said to raucous applause.

He also suggested racism is alive and well in certain areas of Chicago.

“I understand Jim Crow days. I understand also that I wouldn’t be caught in Chicago’s Marquette Park after certain hours either, all right?” Wilson said of the Southwest Side neighborhood as some in the crowd laughed. “It still exists today, all right?”

Wilson said his mother taught him “not to dislike any white people because of their color” and said, “I refuse to hate anybody.”

He then noted how, as he’s campaigned, he has spoken in many black churches and some Latino ones.

“There is one thing I have been disappointed in: When the white politicians come to our community, they get into our churches, but I have not been invited … I can’t get into the Caucasian churches yet,” Wilson said. “I just say it like it is, because I don’t know no better. I want you to invite me, because I want to talk to all citizens.”